It's possible they seduced her with the explicit intent of breaking her heart afterwards. It is possible to manipulate an already emotionally distraught girl into sex she might not otherwise have, with the purpose of hurting her afterwards. With two guys charged, it's possible they did it twice.
Now I know it's not all 'sophisticated' and 'enlightened' to say this, but sex, especially for an inexperienced teenager, is an emotionally significant event- the type of thing sociopaths could use to grind this girl down further.
Incidentally, this is part of the reason why all those silly old puritanical Americans encourage delaying sex- so that one may be emotionally ready for all it entails.
Now the response I expect from you is that 'it's only emotionally significant because we're puritans about it!', which, of course, I would disagree with. The truth isn't in the interests of horny males to state- that sex does matter in human relationships, that it's emotionally intensive, and that we should treat engaging in intercourse with due seriousness.
But we don't, we say it's no big deal, everyone is f*cking, etc, etc. So young people- like this poor girl- get in over their heads, because 'Everyone else can handle it, I should be able to as well.'
You presume that you will always make better choices than your children will? Interesting...
Not always, just 99% of the time when there is a disagreement.
Or have you not learned a damn thing since you last technically qualified as a child, assuming you're not one right now?
More kids need their parents to be parents. We've got enough undisciplined little hellions running around as it is, because their parents won't enforce rules, boundaries, or limitations.
The natural state of mankind is savagery. Overcoming that is the duty of the parent.
If you're bent out of shape after 'suffering under the oppressive thumb' of your father, it's probably because he understands things you don't, but lacks the articulation to explain it to you, or you lack the capacity to listen.
Ah, a smug foreigner. You're the only thing more common on slashdot than *nix discussions. I hate to be the one to break it to you, buddy, but your country's shit stinks, too.
while in Finland it's considered so valuable to society that it actually pays you to get it.
I'm guessing they severely limit the number of philosophy & english (Finnish?) majors, and don't have 'victim group x studies' majors at all.
In the United States there are a significant number of majors that add no value whatsoever to society, and more often than not produce a strain of 'educated' people who have nothing but grievances against productive people.
I'd say the following applies to a good third to half of the useless twits America gives bachelor's degrees:
And in many parts of the world, the number of educated people has risen far faster than the capacity of economies to reward them with positions they believe commensurate with their attainments. Even in the most advanced economies, one will always find unhappy educated people searching for the reason that they are not as important as they should be.
I don't know what happened in UK society (it was obviuosly before I lived here)...hell, I don't understand what went wrong in American society to bring our fascist right-wing wackos out like postnuclear cockroaches, so I certainly cannot begin to divine what happened on this side of the pond.
Well you've already revealed why you can't begin to divine what's happened over there. You've already said that America, with the 'fascist right-wing wackos' out and about- is downright polite compared to the UK. Would it be accurate to say then, that you find the UK's government more to your liking than America's?
General social mores in the United States may give you 'fascist right-wing wackos', but they also give you kids who aren't feral.
The society that has spawned the UK government has also spawned the same degenerate youth, with certain government policies- all very well meaning moves by enlightened lefties, you see- has helped the UK turn into what it is today. Or at least jolly Ol' England.
No 'divining' is necessary to see the cause for the fall in the UK. The answer is apparent to all but folks who can only dismiss alternative viewpoints as those of 'fascist right-wing wackos.'
The problem starts before then. They can't or won't discipline their youth- the state nannies second guess everything- so they've got way to many little hellions over here. Moves like this are piss-poor reactionary measures to real social degeneration already well underway.
I purposely bought a stick shift in my Ranger, because I enjoyed using them at the time. After seven years, I've come to the conclusion that it's merely a distracting chore, as trucks aren't that fun to drive anyway.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, you can shove your elitist anti-American (and/or canadian) attitude. Yes, we all get how cool you are for being able to operate a clutch AND a shift.
Straight manual transmissions are on their way out anyway, being replaced by computer operated 'manual' transmissions. Cuts down on a warranty calls on sports cars, you see.
Soon you won't find them in anything but sub-$11k econoboxes.
Maybe the next time the Pope is online he could do a bit of reading on the effectiveness of condoms in stopping the spread of AIDS. He might learn something and then he would have something better to say to people in Africa.
Not fucking everything in sight is also effective in stopping the spread of AIDS, but that requires self-restraint we can't expect of Africans, eh? (NOTE THAT I AM BEING SARCASTIC)
Self-restraint is also key to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS by any method, with a single exception: the poor bastard who got HIV from a blood transfusion that originated from someone with no self restraint.
I'm thinking the Catholic church is much more in the 'Teach Self-Restraint' camp than the "Cover your wiener whilst you go fuck everything in sight" camp.
Teaching useful personal values is something that religions are generally good at, and something that atheists haven't demonstrated an adequate wide-spread replacement for.
The thing is, when you put together any absurdly complex facility that has never been built before, or it's been a long time since one has been built, you're going to get issues like this.
There's only so many issues you can account for and so many things you can forsee.
The proper operation of such facilities requires thousands of active components (compressors, instruments, etc) and hundreds of thousands of passive components (wires, aligned parts, structural members, etc) to do their jobs correctly. Even if you strive to eliminate single points of failure with redundancy and diversity of equipment, you're still gonna be surprised. A lot.
If it only takes them two years to iron out the bugs I'll be satisfied that the money was well spent. Now, the next guys building a similar facility should strive to not repeat any mistakes, and your talk of the Tevatron implies that happened with the LHC.
Anyway, carry on. Nothing to see here, just a 'normal' shakedown cruise.
- The household energy use issue is real for CA. Remember the rolling blackouts?
And whose fault is this? Is it the power companies, who manage to deliver power reliably to pretty much everywhere else in the United States?
Or the California legislature, who created perverse incentives with an illogical pseudo-deregulation, and byzantine environmental laws that essentially prevent anything from being built anywhere?
This is the typical cycle in California and similarly-run governments.
1. Have a superficially nice idea, and make it law. 2. This law has unforseen or ignored side effects that make things actually worse. 3. The next new nice idea purports to fix the problems caused by the last nice idea made law. 4. Repeat ad infinitum.
The repeated failure, and repeated attempts of the CA legislature (and others) to micromanage endevours beyond their expertise and outside of their duties results in a death spiral of over-regulation. No one says "STOP! ENOUGH ALREADY! STOP FUCKING WITH IT AND WE'LL FIGURE IT OUT WITHOUT YOUR HELP!".
It's getting to the point where it's obvious this death spiral of regulation is feature, not a bug. The expansion of government power under the aegis of fixing problems caused by previous interventions results in more personal power and larger budgets for legislators and regulators.
That reminds me of an instance when I was a teenager, and I was letting my unlicensed friend drive.
It was at night, on some backroads, and a rabbit ran across the road in front of us. She panic-braked and cut the wheel to the side.
We didn't crash, but it was a dangerous over-reaction. I told her right then and there that if a little furry creature runs in front of us again, she must accept that she will kill it, because our safety and the value of the car outweighs the critter's life. Teenage girls must accept that the lives of various woodland creatures are forfeit so that they can drive.
She kept a level head after that.
Now somewhat ironically, accepting this makes it less likely you will actually kill a furry little woodland creature. If you have accepted it's death as a premise of driving, then you needn't panic when a squirrel runs across the road- and you can calmly make small adjustments around the critter.
Well, a 1,000 acres or more is preferable for all the support buildings and security reasons, but yes, the 'power block' can be under 100 acres.
Anyway, The total maximum capacity of these turbines is 600 megawatts. Modern (ie, built in the last 30 years or in progress) put out double this amount, and they do so 24-7 for an 18 month fuel cycle.
A wind farm as described might put out a few hundred megawatts for parts of the day. Actual power plants have to be ready to compensate when the wind dies down.
Why? Are you aware of a large number of accidents resulting from people attempting to learn stick on the open road? Is this such a huge bonafide problem that regulatory action is necessary?
Or do you just like the idea of being lorded over as much as possible by government bureaucrats?
No, they're high because it's a service where productivity can't increase very much.
Rubbish. Folks like you cry we need to spend more money on education, so we give state universities more money, and they blow it on administrators or programs that are ancillary to actually putting useful knowledge into someone's head.
Your argument is only an argument for tuition prices tracking with inflation- but they've been rising at double the inflation rate.
If your state's making money at its institutions, please have them contact mine so we can resolve our huge current deficit.
It's not a matter of profit, it's a matter of finding new and creative ways to blow taxpayer and tuition money on expenses arguably, vaguely related to education.
State universities don't spend money efficiently because they don't have to. There are too many idealists out there who think that pouring money into the universities guarantees getting better results out. This isn't the case.
State Universities are run by mortal men and women, who make the same mistakes and misteps as the rest of us. The letters after their names simply indicate the possession of specialized knowledge, which is entirely unrelated to the efficient operation of a university.
but it doesn't demand the kind of insane restrictions it imposes on rail (freight trains always get right-of-way over passenger trains, that kind of thing.)
The freight companies own the rails, not the Federal Government or Amtrak. It's not a matter of senseless federal fiat, but of economics and property rights. Also, Airports charge user fees to land or take off planes there. Whether or not that covers all the capital cost and operation of the airport is something you'd have to check airport by airport.
They drop out of the various negotiated-price private health insurance schemes, and for the same reasons.
Sure they do. I know of a few specific cases myself. In such cases though, you have other options (insurance companies, paying cash, out of network partial reimbursement, etc). If the government performs a complete take over- and that's the eventuality once we start, because that's the only way the math will work out- then you won't have other options.
Well, you will have other options- you'll be able to pay cash to see a doctor, a current situation which you imply is a problem.
Hard choices often need to be made in the face of limited resources. Will you make those decisions, or will the government?
Next time you go to the doctor, ask about their cash prices for various services. Think about how many you could pay for out of pocket if you had too. What common expenses would you be willing to give up to address those problems, if you had to? Eating out? Your cable tv/internet connection? Would you put off a computer upgrade? Sell the shiny new car and drive a beater?
Do you think you should never have to make those decisions in order to satisfy your medical needs?
Once you answer these questions, that will give you an idea of what sort of financial thresh hold you have, above which you would need insurance.
The public debate should reflect these sorts of questions. It doesn't.
The cynical response is thus: 'Public' health care gives your government a financial incentive to see you dead. Just look at how well medicare/medicaid* is run, and imagine that program vastly expanded.
*In case you hadn't heard, it's not well run. Doctors are dropping out all the time because the paperwork to get the pittance the government will pay is far more of a hassle than it's worth, and those who do stick around get arbitrary, slow, and capricious behavior from the department.
Why? Because funds are limited, and patient demand for services is not. This is a harsh reality that any insurance program, private or public, has to deal with. The ability to tax to cover these things only goes so far.
The US is now looked with disdain, some fear but zero respect. It is considered a bully that resolves all matters through force, and is willing to invest 10x more in maintaining that attitude than in continuing its historical path of exploration and invention.
It would be nice if we moved past a Machiavellian world, but we haven't. Pretending there are no barbarians left in the world doesn't make it so.
Good will and tender feelings are fickle, and any positive effects from those factors are based on common interests anyway.
For those we don't have common interests with, fear is much more reliable. For those we do have common interests with, those shared interests will weather many a tiff over a variety of issues.
So really, international admiration and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee. I have a very limited interest in being abstractly loved by countries around the world, and I hardly think your line of thought accurately reflects the opinion of the 5.7 billion + people outside the US anyway.
Incidentally, 'fear' and 'respect' are often used interchangeably.
Disgustingly, this is also true of big pharmaceuticals. They spend close to 2:1 marketing to research. Given that marketing cures is not something that you need to do, a sick person will come looking for it, one has to wonder why they need to spend such massive (we're talking billions here) amounts of money on, and why.
If you had to run a pharmaceutical company, maybe you'd come to the same conclusions and perform the same basic things, given the environment they work in. It's easy for you to criticize, but sitting there and abstractly moralizing is a luxury that the people who put effective drugs in your hands don't have.
They also spend enormous amounts of their marketing funds on lobbying. Getting your drug listed on the PBS is essentially a free ride on taxpayers, so pharma pays huge amounts of money inviting prominent doctors and other members of the medico-political fraternity to lavish "conferences" in exotic locations, showering them with luxury after luxury. I've been to a few of these events, and the thinly veiled palm greasing in such a socially crucial industry is sickening.
Old axiom- when politicians control buying and selling, the first things bought and sold are politicians. Any increased oversight necessitates that those who are being overseen influence the process, in order to conduct any kind of business. Think of that next time you demand the government 'do something.'
I win! I'm 30, overweight, and happy! Of course, managing my life actively- including minimizing WoW play time to not interfere with family life, work or home projects- is a big part of the equation.
Gaming is a great distraction- a distraction from the things you know you need to do with yourself and your life. Manage your playtime accordingly.
In the immortal words of IceT (?), You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.
...you have a vested interest in the Nuclear industry operating. True. I also have more relevant knowledge than a flapping mouth for greenpeace, who has a vested interest in attention-whoring. These mythical perfectly impartial people you allude to don't exist.
If what you say is to have any credibility what problems do *you* acknowledge the Nuclear industry has? Because the way you would have us believe it the Nuclear industry doesn't have *any* problems and the evidence suggests that that is not the case at all.
Well, I get a daily report of things other power plants have screwed up, so we certainly try to avoid those things. If you want to look for any common threads, I suggest you check out inpo.org or NRC.gov and see what they have for opinions. As for the license extension standards, perhaps I was mistaken that they were public information, but utilities certainly know the requirements.
The thing is, with any human endevour, errors and mistakes will occur. You don't get perfection. You can't find the perfect solution. I'm sure you've been around long enough to discover that.
The question then becomes what kind of consequences will result from errors, how to mitigate the effects of those consequences to down acceptable levels, how to minimize or eliminate repitition of mistakes in the industry, and most importantly, how does all that stack up to realistic, available alternatives?
Now you talk about Davis Besse, and that was certainly shameful, and a lot of people got fired for it, and they deserved it. Lots of people screwed up for that to happen.
But back to our talk about risk management- what would be the consequence if this culmination of human screw ups resulted in a softball sized hole in their reactor coolant system?
Well, they'd start losing coolant. The plant would trip off line. Auxillary injection pumps would start. And they'd have to use that big concrete building for it's designed purpose. The fuel cladding and the containment building would still be intact, and the release of fission products to plant staff and the surrounding area would not occur.
Again, potential consequences of human screw-ups and unnoticed equipment degradation have been forseen, and measures have been implemented to mitigate those consequences. The actual risk of harm to anyone is minimized.
Every day each of us continously evaluates what level of risk we find acceptable, for our health and our very lives, with suprisingly little concrete analysis.
Can I make it across the street before that next car, or should I wait? Do I really need my helmet to ride a quarter mile down the road to my neighbors house? Do I even want to ride my bike on that main road? Is it safe to eat this chip I dropped on the floor? Has this meat been out just a little too long? Do I want to take this shortcut through the dark alley?
You seem to want guarantees & perfection that aren't possible in human endevours. I only offer that nuclear power is better than the available (realistic) alternatives, that the safety record of western nuclear power plants is far better than comparable industrial installations, and it's a good way to make a lot of electricity.
Ok, lets say it means that, over a 60 year period there are still some quite radioactive isotopes. What types of radioactive isotopes would you expect an industrial facility of that size and age to contain in the core?
Not much. The systems would be drained and the waste water processed. You might have some residual radioactive particles left in the system, but without a transport mechanism to the outside, they'll stay there. Also remember that radioactivity and half-life are inversely proportional. The most dangerous elements decay the fastest.
Are you saying that we can expect no radioactive isotopes what-so-ever to to leak into the environment even though that facility would be well over fifty years old and the time of idling?
The French and I believe the Japanese reprocess. It's true that the cost effectiveness isn't there right now for the US, so no one cares to pursue it.
Until someone does, the whole industry is simply snake-oil that will plague future generations. You forget a basic fact of radiation: It decays away. IIRC, after 400 years, the waste is as radioactive as the soil it was drawn from.
Considering we have wooden houses hundreds of years old standing today, I think we can reasonably assume the integrity of whatever purpose-designed storage we put it in for 400 years, if not longer.
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It's possible they seduced her with the explicit intent of breaking her heart afterwards. It is possible to manipulate an already emotionally distraught girl into sex she might not otherwise have, with the purpose of hurting her afterwards. With two guys charged, it's possible they did it twice.
Now I know it's not all 'sophisticated' and 'enlightened' to say this, but sex, especially for an inexperienced teenager, is an emotionally significant event- the type of thing sociopaths could use to grind this girl down further.
Incidentally, this is part of the reason why all those silly old puritanical Americans encourage delaying sex- so that one may be emotionally ready for all it entails.
Now the response I expect from you is that 'it's only emotionally significant because we're puritans about it!', which, of course, I would disagree with. The truth isn't in the interests of horny males to state- that sex does matter in human relationships, that it's emotionally intensive, and that we should treat engaging in intercourse with due seriousness.
But we don't, we say it's no big deal, everyone is f*cking, etc, etc. So young people- like this poor girl- get in over their heads, because 'Everyone else can handle it, I should be able to as well.'
Not always, just 99% of the time when there is a disagreement.
Or have you not learned a damn thing since you last technically qualified as a child, assuming you're not one right now?
More kids need their parents to be parents. We've got enough undisciplined little hellions running around as it is, because their parents won't enforce rules, boundaries, or limitations.
The natural state of mankind is savagery. Overcoming that is the duty of the parent.
If you're bent out of shape after 'suffering under the oppressive thumb' of your father, it's probably because he understands things you don't, but lacks the articulation to explain it to you, or you lack the capacity to listen.
Ah, a smug foreigner. You're the only thing more common on slashdot than *nix discussions.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, buddy, but your country's shit stinks, too.
while in Finland it's considered so valuable to society that it actually pays you to get it.
I'm guessing they severely limit the number of philosophy & english (Finnish?) majors, and don't have 'victim group x studies' majors at all.
In the United States there are a significant number of majors that add no value whatsoever to society, and more often than not produce a strain of 'educated' people who have nothing but grievances against productive people.
I'd say the following applies to a good third to half of the useless twits America gives bachelor's degrees:
-Theodore Dalrymple
I don't know what happened in UK society (it was obviuosly before I lived here)...hell, I don't understand what went wrong in American society to bring our fascist right-wing wackos out like postnuclear cockroaches, so I certainly cannot begin to divine what happened on this side of the pond.
Well you've already revealed why you can't begin to divine what's happened over there.
You've already said that America, with the 'fascist right-wing wackos' out and about- is downright polite compared to the UK.
Would it be accurate to say then, that you find the UK's government more to your liking than America's?
General social mores in the United States may give you 'fascist right-wing wackos', but they also give you kids who aren't feral.
The society that has spawned the UK government has also spawned the same degenerate youth, with certain government policies- all very well meaning moves by enlightened lefties, you see- has helped the UK turn into what it is today. Or at least jolly Ol' England.
No 'divining' is necessary to see the cause for the fall in the UK. The answer is apparent to all but folks who can only dismiss alternative viewpoints as those of 'fascist right-wing wackos.'
The problem starts before then. They can't or won't discipline their youth- the state nannies second guess everything- so they've got way to many little hellions over here. Moves like this are piss-poor reactionary measures to real social degeneration already well underway.
I purposely bought a stick shift in my Ranger, because I enjoyed using them at the time.
After seven years, I've come to the conclusion that it's merely a distracting chore, as trucks aren't that fun to drive anyway.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, you can shove your elitist anti-American (and/or canadian) attitude. Yes, we all get how cool you are for being able to operate a clutch AND a shift.
Straight manual transmissions are on their way out anyway, being replaced by computer operated 'manual' transmissions. Cuts down on a warranty calls on sports cars, you see.
Soon you won't find them in anything but sub-$11k econoboxes.
Maybe the next time the Pope is online he could do a bit of reading on the effectiveness of condoms in stopping the spread of AIDS. He might learn something and then he would have something better to say to people in Africa.
Not fucking everything in sight is also effective in stopping the spread of AIDS, but that requires self-restraint we can't expect of Africans, eh? (NOTE THAT I AM BEING SARCASTIC)
Self-restraint is also key to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS by any method, with a single exception: the poor bastard who got HIV from a blood transfusion that originated from someone with no self restraint.
I'm thinking the Catholic church is much more in the 'Teach Self-Restraint' camp than the "Cover your wiener whilst you go fuck everything in sight" camp.
Teaching useful personal values is something that religions are generally good at, and something that atheists haven't demonstrated an adequate wide-spread replacement for.
We tolerate our grandmothers being molested by these goons. I think a 25 second grilling would be far more preferable.
I've thought about retiring a laptop to kitchen service- I would just make a nice box for it, and then lay the computer out flat on the wall.
Sure, it wouldn't be comfortable to use it, but it would just be there for recipes and maybe streaming a show or something like that.
The thing is, when you put together any absurdly complex facility that has never been built before, or it's been a long time since one has been built, you're going to get issues like this.
There's only so many issues you can account for and so many things you can forsee.
The proper operation of such facilities requires thousands of active components (compressors, instruments, etc) and hundreds of thousands of passive components (wires, aligned parts, structural members, etc) to do their jobs correctly. Even if you strive to eliminate single points of failure with redundancy and diversity of equipment, you're still gonna be surprised. A lot.
If it only takes them two years to iron out the bugs I'll be satisfied that the money was well spent. Now, the next guys building a similar facility should strive to not repeat any mistakes, and your talk of the Tevatron implies that happened with the LHC.
Anyway, carry on. Nothing to see here, just a 'normal' shakedown cruise.
And whose fault is this? Is it the power companies, who manage to deliver power reliably to pretty much everywhere else in the United States?
Or the California legislature, who created perverse incentives with an illogical pseudo-deregulation, and byzantine environmental laws that essentially prevent anything from being built anywhere?
This is the typical cycle in California and similarly-run governments.
1. Have a superficially nice idea, and make it law.
2. This law has unforseen or ignored side effects that make things actually worse.
3. The next new nice idea purports to fix the problems caused by the last nice idea made law.
4. Repeat ad infinitum.
The repeated failure, and repeated attempts of the CA legislature (and others) to micromanage endevours beyond their expertise and outside of their duties results in a death spiral of over-regulation. No one says "STOP! ENOUGH ALREADY! STOP FUCKING WITH IT AND WE'LL FIGURE IT OUT WITHOUT YOUR HELP!".
It's getting to the point where it's obvious this death spiral of regulation is feature, not a bug. The expansion of government power under the aegis of fixing problems caused by previous interventions results in more personal power and larger budgets for legislators and regulators.
That reminds me of an instance when I was a teenager, and I was letting my unlicensed friend drive.
It was at night, on some backroads, and a rabbit ran across the road in front of us. She panic-braked and cut the wheel to the side.
We didn't crash, but it was a dangerous over-reaction. I told her right then and there that if a little furry creature runs in front of us again, she must accept that she will kill it, because our safety and the value of the car outweighs the critter's life. Teenage girls must accept that the lives of various woodland creatures are forfeit so that they can drive.
She kept a level head after that.
Now somewhat ironically, accepting this makes it less likely you will actually kill a furry little woodland creature. If you have accepted it's death as a premise of driving, then you needn't panic when a squirrel runs across the road- and you can calmly make small adjustments around the critter.
Well, a 1,000 acres or more is preferable for all the support buildings and security reasons, but yes, the 'power block' can be under 100 acres.
Anyway, The total maximum capacity of these turbines is 600 megawatts. Modern (ie, built in the last 30 years or in progress) put out double this amount, and they do so 24-7 for an 18 month fuel cycle.
A wind farm as described might put out a few hundred megawatts for parts of the day. Actual power plants have to be ready to compensate when the wind dies down.
We should do this in the US, actually.
Why? Are you aware of a large number of accidents resulting from people attempting to learn stick on the open road? Is this such a huge bonafide problem that regulatory action is necessary?
Or do you just like the idea of being lorded over as much as possible by government bureaucrats?
Another responder covers this.
No, they're high because it's a service where productivity can't increase very much.
Rubbish. Folks like you cry we need to spend more money on education, so we give state universities more money, and they blow it on administrators or programs that are ancillary to actually putting useful knowledge into someone's head.
Your argument is only an argument for tuition prices tracking with inflation- but they've been rising at double the inflation rate.
If your state's making money at its institutions, please have them contact mine so we can resolve our huge current deficit.
It's not a matter of profit, it's a matter of finding new and creative ways to blow taxpayer and tuition money on expenses arguably, vaguely related to education.
State universities don't spend money efficiently because they don't have to. There are too many idealists out there who think that pouring money into the universities guarantees getting better results out. This isn't the case.
State Universities are run by mortal men and women, who make the same mistakes and misteps as the rest of us. The letters after their names simply indicate the possession of specialized knowledge, which is entirely unrelated to the efficient operation of a university.
but it doesn't demand the kind of insane restrictions it imposes on rail (freight trains always get right-of-way over passenger trains, that kind of thing.)
The freight companies own the rails, not the Federal Government or Amtrak. It's not a matter of senseless federal fiat, but of economics and property rights.
Also, Airports charge user fees to land or take off planes there. Whether or not that covers all the capital cost and operation of the airport is something you'd have to check airport by airport.
They drop out of the various negotiated-price private health insurance schemes, and for the same reasons.
Sure they do. I know of a few specific cases myself. In such cases though, you have other options (insurance companies, paying cash, out of network partial reimbursement, etc). If the government performs a complete take over- and that's the eventuality once we start, because that's the only way the math will work out- then you won't have other options.
Well, you will have other options- you'll be able to pay cash to see a doctor, a current situation which you imply is a problem.
Hard choices often need to be made in the face of limited resources. Will you make those decisions, or will the government?
Next time you go to the doctor, ask about their cash prices for various services. Think about how many you could pay for out of pocket if you had too. What common expenses would you be willing to give up to address those problems, if you had to? Eating out? Your cable tv/internet connection? Would you put off a computer upgrade? Sell the shiny new car and drive a beater?
Do you think you should never have to make those decisions in order to satisfy your medical needs?
Once you answer these questions, that will give you an idea of what sort of financial thresh hold you have, above which you would need insurance.
The public debate should reflect these sorts of questions. It doesn't.
The cynical response is thus: 'Public' health care gives your government a financial incentive to see you dead. Just look at how well medicare/medicaid* is run, and imagine that program vastly expanded.
*In case you hadn't heard, it's not well run. Doctors are dropping out all the time because the paperwork to get the pittance the government will pay is far more of a hassle than it's worth, and those who do stick around get arbitrary, slow, and capricious behavior from the department.
Why? Because funds are limited, and patient demand for services is not. This is a harsh reality that any insurance program, private or public, has to deal with. The ability to tax to cover these things only goes so far.
The US is now looked with disdain, some fear but zero respect. It is considered a bully that resolves all matters through force, and is willing to invest 10x more in maintaining that attitude than in continuing its historical path of exploration and invention.
It would be nice if we moved past a Machiavellian world, but we haven't. Pretending there are no barbarians left in the world doesn't make it so.
Good will and tender feelings are fickle, and any positive effects from those factors are based on common interests anyway.
For those we don't have common interests with, fear is much more reliable. For those we do have common interests with, those shared interests will weather many a tiff over a variety of issues.
So really, international admiration and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee. I have a very limited interest in being abstractly loved by countries around the world, and I hardly think your line of thought accurately reflects the opinion of the 5.7 billion + people outside the US anyway.
Incidentally, 'fear' and 'respect' are often used interchangeably.
Disgustingly, this is also true of big pharmaceuticals. They spend close to 2:1 marketing to research. Given that marketing cures is not something that you need to do, a sick person will come looking for it, one has to wonder why they need to spend such massive (we're talking billions here) amounts of money on, and why.
If you had to run a pharmaceutical company, maybe you'd come to the same conclusions and perform the same basic things, given the environment they work in. It's easy for you to criticize, but sitting there and abstractly moralizing is a luxury that the people who put effective drugs in your hands don't have.
They also spend enormous amounts of their marketing funds on lobbying. Getting your drug listed on the PBS is essentially a free ride on taxpayers, so pharma pays huge amounts of money inviting prominent doctors and other members of the medico-political fraternity to lavish "conferences" in exotic locations, showering them with luxury after luxury. I've been to a few of these events, and the thinly veiled palm greasing in such a socially crucial industry is sickening.
Old axiom- when politicians control buying and selling, the first things bought and sold are politicians. Any increased oversight necessitates that those who are being overseen influence the process, in order to conduct any kind of business. Think of that next time you demand the government 'do something.'
I win! I'm 30, overweight, and happy!
Of course, managing my life actively- including minimizing WoW play time to not interfere with family life, work or home projects- is a big part of the equation.
Gaming is a great distraction- a distraction from the things you know you need to do with yourself and your life. Manage your playtime accordingly.
In the immortal words of IceT (?),
You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.
If what you say is to have any credibility what problems do *you* acknowledge the Nuclear industry has? Because the way you would have us believe it the Nuclear industry doesn't have *any* problems and the evidence suggests that that is not the case at all.
Well, I get a daily report of things other power plants have screwed up, so we certainly try to avoid those things. If you want to look for any common threads, I suggest you check out inpo.org or NRC.gov and see what they have for opinions. As for the license extension standards, perhaps I was mistaken that they were public information, but utilities certainly know the requirements.
The thing is, with any human endevour, errors and mistakes will occur. You don't get perfection. You can't find the perfect solution. I'm sure you've been around long enough to discover that.
The question then becomes what kind of consequences will result from errors, how to mitigate the effects of those consequences to down acceptable levels, how to minimize or eliminate repitition of mistakes in the industry, and most importantly, how does all that stack up to realistic, available alternatives?
Now you talk about Davis Besse, and that was certainly shameful, and a lot of people got fired for it, and they deserved it. Lots of people screwed up for that to happen.
But back to our talk about risk management- what would be the consequence if this culmination of human screw ups resulted in a softball sized hole in their reactor coolant system?
Well, they'd start losing coolant. The plant would trip off line. Auxillary injection pumps would start. And they'd have to use that big concrete building for it's designed purpose. The fuel cladding and the containment building would still be intact, and the release of fission products to plant staff and the surrounding area would not occur.
Again, potential consequences of human screw-ups and unnoticed equipment degradation have been forseen, and measures have been implemented to mitigate those consequences. The actual risk of harm to anyone is minimized.
Every day each of us continously evaluates what level of risk we find acceptable, for our health and our very lives, with suprisingly little concrete analysis.
Can I make it across the street before that next car, or should I wait?
Do I really need my helmet to ride a quarter mile down the road to my neighbors house? Do I even want to ride my bike on that main road?
Is it safe to eat this chip I dropped on the floor?
Has this meat been out just a little too long?
Do I want to take this shortcut through the dark alley?
You seem to want guarantees & perfection that aren't possible in human endevours. I only offer that nuclear power is better than the available (realistic) alternatives, that the safety record of western nuclear power plants is far better than comparable industrial installations, and it's a good way to make a lot of electricity.
Ok, lets say it means that, over a 60 year period there are still some quite radioactive isotopes. What types of radioactive isotopes would you expect an industrial facility of that size and age to contain in the core?
Not much. The systems would be drained and the waste water processed. You might have some residual radioactive particles left in the system, but without a transport mechanism to the outside, they'll stay there. Also remember that radioactivity and half-life are inversely proportional. The most dangerous elements decay the fastest.
Are you saying that we can expect no radioactive isotopes what-so-ever to to leak into the environment even though that facility would be well over fifty years old and the time of idling?
Again, you need a transport mechani
The French and I believe the Japanese reprocess. It's true that the cost effectiveness isn't there right now for the US, so no one cares to pursue it.
Until someone does, the whole industry is simply snake-oil that will plague future generations.
You forget a basic fact of radiation: It decays away. IIRC, after 400 years, the waste is as radioactive as the soil it was drawn from.
Considering we have wooden houses hundreds of years old standing today, I think we can reasonably assume the integrity of whatever purpose-designed storage we put it in for 400 years, if not longer.